Beyond the Divide﻿: Design Activism in the Segregated Neighborhoods of St. Louis﻿

This film will portray the role that designers in St. Louis have played in engaging their communities to address social justice and inequality in the built environment. Using oral history interviews, location shooting, and archival footage, this trilogy will explore three different approaches to design activism including university outreach, professional engagement, and neighborhood organizing. Exploring the successes and limitations of these methods of intervention, the film highlights the opportunities and barriers to positive change in the context of the long legacy of discrimination and disinvestment in the urban fabric of St. Louis. This documentary, which will be formatted into three 20 to 30 minute chapters, will be attractive for classroom use as well as causal viewing as it intends to invoke discussion amongst the audience. These short films will be an excellent tool for teaching students or the general public about the design challenges of postindustrial divided cities.

‘Saving’ the Neighborhood: ​Community Organizing, Urban Revitalization and Racial Integration in St. Louis

​This project is part of a larger examination of the way that neighborhood organizations have shaped community development in areas facing urban decline, particularly in deindustrializing cities facing white flight and racial segregation. This research will examine the effectiveness of various programs in St. Louis that encouraged community based planning efforts as part of a hoped for “neighborhood Renaissance” which would help the city to overcome its infamous national reputation for urban problems. During the 1970s, in response to the perceived failures of top down urban renewal, city planning agencies in St. Louis welcomed the formation of neighborhood associations and actively sought guidance from resident groups in revitalization programs. In particular, the city consulted with communities regarding decisions about historic preservation, urban redevelopment, and the use of newly available Community Development Block Grants. Case studies of how city agencies and local communities mobilized to promote diverse neighborhoods provide valuable lessons to policy makers about how to best implement socially just community-based planning approaches in the future.

This research will be published in the form of a book, which will include histories of three neighborhoods in St. Louis where community groups shaped the process of revitalization. The case studies will represent a range of racial and class demographics, architectural conditions, and historical legacies, to show the differences in how St. Louis’s urban planning policies were applied in various contexts. The first case study will examine Carr Square in north St. Louis, a low-income neighborhood near the infamous, and now demolished Pruitt Igoe public housing project. Here African American led organizations like the Urban League and the Carr Square Tenants Corporation have fought to improve housing conditions and opportunities for integration in both the private market and federal housing and relocation programs. The second neighborhood Skinker DeBaliviere in west St. Louis, which experienced racial integration in the 1960s, used community organizing to stabilize the neighborhood, avoiding white flight and creating a racially diverse area. The third study, Soulard in the Near Southside, formed a historic district as a way to encourage middle class owners to return to a largely vacant ethnic white neighborhood.

By tracing the history of these community organizations from the 1960s through the 1980s, each case study will examine the positive ways that neighborhood groups were able to influence the public policies and use of public funding in their area. Brief post-histories of the neighborhoods, from the 1990s to the present day, will highlight the long-term affects of the earlier programs. However each study will also examine the limits of community organizing as a means to ensure the social justice outcomes of revitalization policies, particularly in areas experiencing changes in their class and/or racial character. The case studies will explore the conflicts between different community groups as their tried to address issues of integration and displacement of minority and low-income groups.

Overall the book will argue that while the associations in these St. Louis neighborhoods have had a positive impact on urban revitalization efforts and long term diversification, middle and upper-income white residents have had greater power to define and represent their community, and thus ultimately to shape the future form and identity of the neighborhood.